


Soldier On, My Good Country Man

by bucketbarnes (jeviennis)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 21:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1663520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeviennis/pseuds/bucketbarnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of the helicarrier crash, the Winter Soldier - James, Bucky, whatever his name is - has some learning to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soldier On, My Good Country Man

**Author's Note:**

> This was a real labour of love, so comments would be super appreciated! 
> 
> Bucky Barnes discovering who he is gives me life. Assassins palling around with middle-aged nurses also gives me life.

It’s as soon as he – Bucky, the Soldier, whatever his damn name is – leaves the Captain bleeding on the riverbank that he realises that he has nowhere to start. He’s failed his mission, he’s got no new orders, and he has absolutely no idea who he is. The Captain seemed to know him, though, so he decides to start with him and work backwards. Or forwards. Whichever. 

It takes about three miles and around two hours before he gets his first breakthrough; a huge, gaudy billboard hung on a street that gets darker with every passing minute. On it, the Captain’s face is lit up like a beacon by hundreds of tiny spotlights. His eyes gleam and his smile is pearly white, and as he looks towards the Smithsonian, the message next to him reads ‘I am America’s hero. Learn more about me here!’ 

For some undefinable reason, this annoys him. He doesn’t know why, and as he drags his sodden boots up the path and towards the giant museum, it niggles at him. Hero. America’s hero. It sounds hollow, desperate. A country so desperately in need of hope that it places that entire burden upon the shoulders of one man. Now, he doesn’t know much about himself – nothing, really – but he knows that he’d could never be that. He’s never been that, and that he absolutely never will. A hero. No, he – _James? Is that his name?_ – will remain marked by his actions for as long as he will live. 

It suddenly strikes him that his shoulder, his real shoulder, is still very much dislocated. He becomes aware of this as a teenager on a skateboard flies right into his side because he’s too busy staring at the wet mess in front. When he catches sight of himself in a shop window, the Soldier (he’ll go with that for now, he’s not thinking clearly enough to name himself) can see why perhaps he might draw a little attention. He's soaked through with dirty river water, he’s got a pistol hanging out of one holster, there’s blood on his face and his arm – the other arm – is whirring and clicking as it attempts to recalibrate and work out the water damage. He’s looked better.

But then, as a memory that he’s sure he experienced recently flashes behind his eyes and he sees himself lying on an operating table with blood pouring from an open wound where his arm should have been, he thinks that he may have looked worse, too. Still, best to try and fit in for a while. It’s nice not having orders, he decides. Nice not having someone determined to use him and wipe him. Whatever nice is. So, he’ll go undercover – call it _covert espionage_ , put it into terms that he might be able to make himself understand. Covert espionage as a tourist in the capital of the United States of America, learning more about their hero. About his friends, maybe – was he the Captain’s friend? Could he possibly have been anyone’s friend?

 **I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.**

That’d stuck with him since he’d watched the Captain fall, a moment which had felt eerie for a reason that he didn’t think he’d ever understand. Maybe that’s why it was so eerie; fear of the unknown, fear of that which he cannot decipher. He’d known those words before, he remembered them being spoken many times. Jokingly, shared with nudges to the shoulder and ruffles to the hair, and with meaning, with hands on shoulders and unbroken gazes. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it, deep down in the part of his body where his soul might have been. It flooded with warmth for a single moment, and then it was replaced by fear and confusion and a rage that he could not find a suitable outlet for. And that was that. Another lost moment sucked away into the abyss that was his existence. 

There’s a jacket and a cap laying on the porch of a house that looks empty. It’s dark outside now, and windows are pouring comforting yellow lighting onto patches of the sidewalk. He looks around once, twice, and then picks them up and throws them on, shoving his hair behind his ears and jamming the cap as low down as it will go. He thinks of leaving something in their place, but seeing as all he has on him is a waterlogged pistol, he decides against it. Still, he notes somewhat proudly, it’s nice that he thought to do that all. Again, whatever nice is. He’s apparently decided in these few hours since he tried to kill a man who claimed to be his friend that nice should be something for him to strive for. Any friend of Captain America’s should be nice. He can’t quite work out why he suddenly cares so much about what the Captain thinks of him, especially given that he could be dead on a riverbank, but he knows somewhere inside himself that this isn’t the first time he’s wanted to prove himself to the Captain. Some part of his mind tugs at his heart like a piano key, and all he wants to know is how a person such as himself could ever be deserving of the love of a good man. 

The people in charge may have wiped him, frozen him year after year, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out what he’s done. The iron fist, the armoured containment cell that he’s forced into – he’s no American hero. 

The Smithsonian looms in front of him and blocks out the last of the fading sunlight, casting an opaque shadow onto the ground in front of him. The people in the doorway look like ants, tiny black figures against the orange of the light inside. He makes his way up the steps, and realises that there are more people going against him than there are following him. When he reaches the door, he’s stopped by a flimsy rope barrier and a hand clapped on his dislocated shoulder that makes him bite his tongue in pain. With bursts of air hissing through his teeth as he draws his arm closer to his chest, he turns to face the owner of the hand.

‘Sorry sir, the museum is closing for the night now. We’re open from 8:30am, so maybe we’ll see you tomorrow?’

Realising that whoever this man is, he wants an answer, the Soldier nods curtly, eyes darting from his face to the floor. He turns and makes his way down the steps as fast as possible, wanting to avoid another attack from the punk at the door. Then he thinks, hmm, punk is a new one. He shakes it off as something he overheard his employers say, but again, it stays with him in the back of his mind, and he knows there’s more to it that he just hasn’t figured out yet.  


He’s got a lot to figure out, and he knows that he’s only scratching the surface. 

-

The Soldier – maybe James, because after a night’s sleep _the Soldier_ is starting to sound too sterile, too cold – awakes the next morning laying awkwardly against the side of the Smithsonian when the same man from last night pokes at his injured shoulder. _Really_ , he thinks to himself, _this guy has got serious boundary issues_. Then he thinks that he’s never thought that before, even when engineers and scientists were holding soldering irons to his arm, and so maybe that is even more progress. Towards what, he’s not sure, but it’s definitely original thought and that’s good. Nice, even. 

The young man, he realises, is still staring at him with concern and unease lining the corners of his eyes. That might be because he’s holding his arm like a newborn and that his hand has gone a distinctly unnatural colour. On the other hand, it could be that he has been staring into space for a solid two minutes while he had his minor revelation. Either way, the not drawing attention to himself part of this covert espionage mission has so far been a catastrophic failure. James concludes that he should speak, and so he clears his throat and then immediately regrets it when he realises how thirsty he is. He’s about to do something he can’t ever remember doing (not that such a statement is a massively huge deal for him) when the young man beats him to it.

‘Sir, would you like some help? You look kinda – uhm, well kinda injured.’

The man holds out a hand which trembles a little bit, and James reaches for it with his metal hand before he's even aware of what he’s doing. When the man sees his hand and his eyes widen, he pulls it to his chest like it’s been burnt, breaking gaze and staring at the tree behind him as if it holds all the secrets of the universe. There’s a long moment before the young man speaks again, clearly and precisely.

‘There’s no need to be embarrassed about anything, Sir. I only want to get you inside and warm you up a little. It’s awfully cold outside this morning. Please, I think you should see someone about that shoulder of yours.’

James sneaks a glance up at the young man, whose eyes have softened somewhat and whose hand is much steadier as it stretches towards him. He looks earnest, even, slightly pleading. Like he wants him to get some help, to get better. When was the last time that ever happened? He vaguely remembers a smoky bar and jazz music, so discerns that it has been a long time since anyone cared about him. 

He nods again, not risking his sandpaper throat, before gingerly placing his metal hand in the young man’s flesh one, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet until they stand face-to-face. He notes sadly as the young man beckons him and he walks without pause that maybe he isn’t quite free yet. He’s still following orders. 

As he’s led through the back door of the museum and towards the staff room, he wonders if this young man has any idea who he is. Because if the Captain knew him, then why wouldn’t anyone else? If he really is Bucky Barnes, best friend to Captain America, then why isn’t he being recognised and cornered? A really, really stupid part of himself feels almost indignant for a second, but then he remembers that even _he_ doesn’t know who he is, and that maybe being randomly identified in Washington D.C. wouldn't be holding true to his ‘go unnoticed’ plan.

He’s shaken out of his unending internal monologue by the young man, who holds out a plastic cup of water to him with a searching gaze. He takes the water and throws it back like a shot glass – when does he remember drinking shots? Rediscovering yourself is confusing – and then gives the young man what he hopes is his best pleading grimace and gestures to the water tank. 

‘Oh, do you want some more? Just help yourself, Sir. I’m gonna go and get the onsite medic to take a look at your arm – your other arm, I mean, not your – I mean, I can get someone for you if you want that looking at too, but – okay, I’m just gonna go and get that medic now.’

As the young man stumbles out of the room, all the professionalism from outside seemingly gone, James almost wants to laugh. And then he wants to laugh because he doesn’t know the last time he wanted to laugh at anything. Laughter is not the most essential part of being an experienced assassin. Still, he thinks to himself, that’s a step in a better direction than before. He wants to laugh, and by extension wants to be happy. That’s a start. 

He can work with that.

The young man returns a minute or so later (and James congratulates himself mentally on having not left in that time) with an older woman holding a green box. She looks gentle, kind, and he thinks that maybe she would be a good friend to Captain America, always looking after everyone. Her eyes settle on him when she enters the room, and she winces when she sees the colour of his hand, held firmly against his chest and twitching slightly. 

‘Oh honey, what on earth did you do? That’s a nasty looking dislocation!’

Before he has time to press himself against the wall behind him, the older woman is by his side and forcing him into a chair he hadn’t even noticed, already chattering away as she opens up her first aid kit. He sits there, motionless for a while, just staring at the side of her head as she lays things out in front of her.

‘Now, I’ll clear all these cuts on your face up first, get you looking nice and handsome, and then we’ll see what we can do about that arm, see if we can’t pop it back into place and strap it up. What on earth having you being doing, honey? Did you get in a fight or something?’

She quickly glances at him and smiles, and James has no response that he can form quick enough, so he does something ridiculous. He smiles back – it’s a painful grimace, one that pulls at the corners of his mouth so hard that he almost creaks, and he makes a mental note to warn himself before he tries to smile again. He’s not quite sure what else he could possibly say: _yes, kind lady, I attempted to attack your country’s resident hero who claims to be my best friend that I can’t remember._ That might not fly so well, so he continues to contort his mouth and hopes that it potentially resembles amusement. 

The next five minutes or so move fairly quickly and uneventfully. The older lady mops his face with some kind of anti-bacterial alcohol that stings a little, and she doesn’t force him to communicate any more than he wants to; he shakes and nods his head when she asks questions, but remains silent and attempts to memorise every single line of her kind face. He hasn’t seen kindness in a long time, and so to be so close to it is almost disconcerting. It’s almost enough to relax him, but then she tries to assess his shoulder.

‘Now – ooh, honey, this’ll be a bad one to get back in, so how about I give you a little something to take the edge off, okay?’

He looks down at what she is pulling out of her kit, and the giant syringe isn’t even unwrapped before he’s on the other side of the room, the chair he just leapt out of clattering to the floor. She holds the syringe in her hand, dumbstruck for a second, but then goes to speak-

‘No. No needles.’

The words are out of his mouth before he even thinks them through, but he makes his point because she drops it back into her kit without comment. They stare at each other for a moment, wild eyes meeting warm ones, and she smiles softly again, waiting for him to come over. He takes a moment to size her up, eyeing up her first aid kit warily, before he walks slowly back to the chair and sets it upright again, sitting down and staring resolutely at the floor again. _Absolutely killing it with the covert thing, pal._

‘It’s okay, honey, I’m not a big fan of needles either. It’ll hurt more if you go without, but if that’s what you wanna do then that’s what we’ll do, alright?’

It’s that comment that stings him more than anything has since the Captain's comment on the helicarrier, and it’s those words that make him feel like he could potentially be a whole person outside of this entire horrid legacy that he’s become a part of. It’s a choice, a decision left entirely to him – for the first time that he can remember, he is in control of what happens to him. A tiny moment in the scale of things, really, but one that he’s sure will make him a little bit different to the man he was yesterday. Then he realises that she’s waiting for his confirmation.

‘Uhm – yes. Please.’

The ‘please’ comes as an afterthought, but when the kind lady’s face becomes just a tiny bit brighter, he’s glad he said it. If this is what making people happy feels like, then he’s sure that he might try it again sometime soon. She nods, and gently takes a hold of his hand and the top of his shoulder – unable to contain it, he lets out a whimper that catches in his throat on the inhale, and he’s in so much pain that he doesn’t even flinch when she briefly moves her hand his cheek and strokes her thumb across his jaw. 

‘I’m sorry, honey, this is gonna hurt. I’ll do it quickly, I promise.’

James has had his arm set back into place many times – five that he can remember – and even though he’s in more pain than any of those previous dislocations, he strangely feels calmer and safer than he has before. There’s the underlying panic that senses oncoming pain, but he’s comforted by this lady’s presence; somehow, he feels sure that she really will do it quickly, and that the empathy that lines her face is not falsified.

She doesn’t want him to be in pain any more than he has to be, and that is something that he knows he has not seen in a while. To her, he is a man and not a war machine. He is a soul and not a vacuum. It’s refreshing, and it’s the warmest feeling he knows.

And then the pop of his shoulder comes and that feeling is replaced with a surge of white-hot pain that punches him in the gut. He retches, and then everything starts to fade to black from the corners of his eyes.

-

When he comes to, his shoulder has been put into a sling and his head is resting on the older lady’s shoulder as she strokes his hair gently. She and the younger man removed his cap and his jacket whilst he was unconscious, and they lay folded in a neat pile next to him. They smell like they’ve been spritzed with some kind of perfume, and James catches himself hoping that it’s the older lady’s. His eyes widen as he thinks over what he just thought – attachment is a very, very new concept to him; minutes old, in fact, and although he’s calm, he’s still not entirely sure that he’s comfortable with it. He must move his head slightly as he attempts to make sense of everything that’s clashing in his mind, because the older lady notices and looks down at him. 

He still hasn’t moved his head off of her shoulder yet, and for some reason he doesn’t think he will for now. He feels like a child, and distant kaleidoscopic memories of parents and younger siblings pass across his already blurred field of vision as he leans his weight into her.

He’s so tired.

‘Hey, honey, are you back with us? You had a bit of a moment there, but you’re all okay now. Your shoulder’s back into place now, but I still want to get you to a hospi-‘

‘-No, no hospitals. I’m fine.’

He’s making a habit of speaking without thinking, but then it occurs to him that maybe this is how everyone speaks, and that maybe he’s starting to become a bit more like the rest of the world. _Mission: Covert Espionage_ may well be a success after all. Maybe he should rename his mission, then. _Mission: Remember My Own Name_ or _Mission: Become A Functioning Member of Society_. He hadn’t even realised that he’d made the decision to exist in the world he’s found himself in, but clearly his mind wants things for him that the rest of his body doesn’t know yet. That's a bit too much freedom. He’d like some control over his own brain before the day is out.

The older lady is gazing at him with something unreadable in her eyes – familiarity? Fondness? Whatever it is, it’s something that he’d like to both stop immediately and continue forever. When she speaks again, it’s even softer than before.

‘What’s your name, honey?’

That’s a question. The answer: _well, ma’am, I’m afraid I have no idea, because I’m actually an assassin who is mentally wiped after every completed mission._ Perhaps not. So he goes with what he’s most comfortable with at that second.

‘James.’

‘Well, James, my name’s Maggie. I think you need to go to the hospital, honey – I’m a medic, not a doctor. I can’t fix everything.’

With the warmth that he feels radiating off of her at that second, he highly doubts that there is anything that she cannot solve. He thinks for a moment, and then puts a word to that feeling. Trust. That’s another new one. He doesn’t trust anyone; if you trust the opponent, you die. If you trust the employer, you are wiped. Somehow, though, he doesn’t believe Maggie is going to do either, and so he lets himself sit in her space for a moment longer before he sighs, inhales, and stands up. He takes the cap and places it back on his head, noting that Maggie has tied his hair out of his face. It’s quite nice, really. More practical, definitely. He puts his metal arm into the sleeve of the jacket – Maggie is resolutely avoiding staring at it, and he feels a wave of gratitude sweep over him for her discreet nature – and shrugs the rest of it over his sling, and then goes to leave the room. They’ll start prying soon, he resolves, so better sooner than later. Don’t want to disappoint Maggie, anyway. 

As he reaches the doorway of the room, he hears her speak once more.

‘Please, honey, take care of yourself.’

He can’t let her kindness go unnoticed – the man that he is starting to understand he wants to be would not let such a thing happen, and neither would Captain America’s friend, so he turns and faces her before he goes.

‘Okay. Thank you, Maggie.’

It’s the most sincere thing he can ever remember saying, but it’s hopefully not the last.

-

Walking through the rapidly filling foyer – the clock on the wall tells him it’s only just gone 10am, so the eager tourists are starting to make their way obnoxiously to the ticket desks – he decides that whilst he’s here, he may as well visit what he came here to see. 

The line for the ‘Captain America Experience: The Rise of a Hero!’ exhibit is longer than everything else, so he figures that he’ll be able to slip in unnoticed if he keeps his head down. He waits patiently for fifteen minutes or so, whilst everyone in front of him shuffles through the double doors at the end of the corridor, and then congratulates himself briefly on harnessing his newfound patience. He’s getting better at this ‘being-a-normal-member-of-society’ lark, and judging by the ridiculous commotion that a British man without a ticket is causing to his left, he might actually be winning at the moment.

When he steps through the double doors (carefully secreted amongst a large group of sightseers with cameras bigger than their faces), the air around him changes. Loud trumpet music blares at him through a speaker system, boasting patriotism and military power. A man with a deep accent shouts at him from the multitude of smaller exhibits, telling a new story every ten paces. It makes his head spin for a minute, the sensory overload combining with a heated sense of familiarity that alarms him – he recognises uniforms, old rifles, and photographs that litter the walls. He sees camaraderie and pride, but he also sees fear and desolation and wonders if that is something that he’s adding himself, something that he’s starting to remember. 

An imposing but kindly man with an impressive handlebar moustache stares down at him from a giant poster, instructing him to _‘meet the Howling Commandos’_. The name rings a bell – rings multiple, in fact – and so he moves towards the display cases without hesitation. As his eyes flick across pictures of soldiers (service portraits, family occasions, tombstones), memories that he can’t quite place yet flash up in front of him like strobe lights. A boy, no older than sixteen, shaking as he – James – puts his arms around his shoulders and draws his head away from gunfire. A subdued chant around a dying campfire, laced with loss and weariness and left unsung by far too many men. A friend calling after him, his screams mixing with the cold air as it whips around him and he is falling, falling and he can’t see an end but he knows that he has to find one at some point-

-the feeling of his bones cracking as he hits the ground jolts him back to reality, and he realises that he’d been staring into the middle distance. When he focuses his eyes, he sees what he had been looking at; a full size photo of the Captain watches protectively over the exhibit, his hair perfectly windswept and his shoulders impeccably squared. He looks like a hero, he thinks. He looks confident and undefeatable, and James begins to wonder if maybe the man on the helicarrier wasn’t quite the symbol of hope that he had been in death, wonders if while he had been discovering his truth the Captain had been losing a part of his. He hadn’t been that Captain when James had seen him – he was bruised, broken, and so utterly, utterly tired. 

Maybe, he thinks to himself, maybe that’s the face of a man that loses a friend twice. Maybe that’s the face of a man who watches his friend fall and thinks that he has lost everything, and maybe that’s his face when he finds the tiniest spark of hope burning beneath the rubble of his existence. And maybe, just maybe, that’s his face when he watches a breath of wind extinguish the spark, and he realises that he is in the dark once more. 

He shakes his head, and sees a line of young boys behind him with t-shirts that match the Captain’s shield, staring with their jaws agape at the giant colour picture of their hero. For one second, James thinks that they might be staring at him, that he might be the reason that they gasp and squeal in excitement. Then he remembers the words ‘covert espionage’, and thinks that even if they did know him, they wouldn’t be happy to see him. He can’t recall in high definition the last time anyone was happy to see him, but a distant dingy laboratory and a man yelling ‘Bucky!’ tells him that it was, again, probably quite some time ago. 

As he rounds the corner and finds himself face-to-face with another violently coloured image of the Captain ( _these people are just showing off their fancy colour photos_ , he thinks, and then wonders why in the hell he just thought that), and interactive display on his left catches his eye. It’s not the video that gets his attention and it’s not the crowd of people fighting to get clear pictures of the exhibit either – it’s the photo of his own face, rounder and more youthful, that pulls him through the throng of sweating tourists. 

He must hold eye contact with the photo – himself, weird – for at least five minutes before a shove to his injured shoulder sends him reeling out of the way. As he hits the ground wincing, a voice babbles in a high-pitched tone and multiple arms try to pull him off the museum floor.

‘Oh my- oh my god, I am so sorry! Oh Jesus, you’ve got a sling- I didn’t hit your bad arm did I? God, I can’t tell you how sorry I am, it was an accident I swear-‘

‘-It’s fine. Really.’

He’s definitely improving with the human interaction aspect of society, he reasons, because the middle-aged source of the voice sucks in a breath and stops talking for a second, instead helping the other people behind him get him back to standing. When he’s up, he looks into the face of his assailant-slash-comrade and realises just a second too late that even though his cap is pulled down and he’s got a couple of days worth of stubble, he’s still standing right next to a photo of his own face. 

There’s a beat before the middle-aged man’s eyes widen and flick from the photo to his real face, where it’s frozen in a state of fear and _shit I am so fucked_. The man’s jaw drops, and he points one stubby index finger towards James, recognition beginning to dawn and soften his expression. One agonizing moment later, and he speaks.

‘You- you’re – you’re, are you really? – man, are you related to that guy?’

Relief washes over James like he’s just sunk into a bath, and his face naturally relaxes into something akin to a smile, softer and freer than the one he’d given Maggie earlier. This man, this stupid, ridiculous man, had given him the perfect escape route, the perfect identity.

‘Yeah. I am, yes.’

‘Really? How?’

The man must see his brain whirring as he attempts to calculate dates and generations, his eyes flicking from the death date – _his_ death date – on the board to what he thinks the year is now, and blurts out an answer before he can second guess himself.

‘Grandfather.’

He sees the man’s eyes narrow like he’s the Spanish Inquisition, and he mentally berates himself because _shit, I don’t have any kids_ before thinking _wait, do I?_ There’s another horridly long pause, but then the man shrugs and nods, evidently not arriving at a sound enough conclusion to challenge him.

‘Cool. Your grandfather was a hero, you know.’

For the second time that day, the words of a stranger hit James like a freight train. Hero. He’s a hero – there are people in the world who think _he_ , James Buchanan Barnes, is a hero. He stops for a second and stares at his face on the wall, and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he was once good enough and kind enough to be the Captain’s friend, after all. As he thinks it, the video underneath catches his attention and he watches himself laugh alongside the Captain, look at him with fondness and have it returned in equal measure. He sees an ease, a natural warmth, and somewhere deep down inside him he feels an ache that he no longer has that. It starts in his stomach and works up, constricting his chest and overpowering every rational thought in his mind – he aches for friendship and he aches for trust, and that terrifies him a little. A lot. It’s too new, too foreign, but he knows that he craves it more than he craves sleep, more than he craves anonymity in this new world. 

He can’t be Bucky Barnes in a world that thinks he’s dead, but he’s suddenly so desperate to be that man that it rips at his heart. He thinks back to the giant billboard on the street and to ‘America’s Hero’ and wonders that if he, Bucky Barnes (he’s going with that now, James is all of a sudden too alien), had lived, would his face have been on there with the Captain? Would they have stood shoulder to shoulder and watched the turning of the age in front of their very eyes? 

He doesn’t know the answer to that question, wouldn’t even know where to begin, but he’s pretty sure that he knows someone who might be able to help him. It was just dependent upon whether or not he was dead at the side of the river or not. For a not-quite-so-brief moment, Bucky Barnes prayed that the Captain had lived. Definite progress, then. He notes casually that he seems to be measuring his humanity on what he feels for the Captain, and wonders if it had always been that way, or if rediscovering himself had forced him to attach himself to something real, something tangible, that he could moor himself to in a world that he no longer understood as his own. 

Bucky scans the text next to his face over and over, absorbing childhood and siblings and hero and sacrifice and questions intensely how far they apply to him, this new man. He looks at the video of the old Bucky Barnes, laughing and gazing at his best friend, and makes a split-second resolution that _that_ man, that happy and proud young boy can be the kind soul that he strives to be. He will become the sort of man that the Captain would keep as a friend, and he will seek friendship and companionship in order to tether him to his new life. It’s not because he needs to become the old Bucky Barnes or to assimilate, he thinks to himself, but because he seems like the perfect model for the perfect human man. The perfect combination of flaw and strength. This man, this shell of Bucky Barnes, knows nothing of his pitfalls or qualities, knows nothing of himself or anyone else.

In that moment, he feels entirely alone, and he knows who he must find to fill the gaping chasm in his chest. 

-

It is at 2:46am the morning after the helicarrier crashes that Steve Rogers is rushed through the doors of the Emergency Room with multiple impact injuries and three bullets lodged in his body. Surgery is long, draining, and tense, and Natasha only sits down once the doctors have closed every hole and set every single bone. Doctors run tests on him, and tell Sam that even though his enhanced body means he’ll recover much quicker, it’s best to let him sleep for now. Even superheroes need to sleep. So Sam naps in the chair next to the bed whilst Natasha stands stoically at the end, hands placed on the bar and gaze firmly fixed on the wounded soldier in front of her. 

After a while he is moved to a more secure room, given guards that Natasha and Sam glare at relentlessly. Trust is now a compromise, so they remain at Steve’s side for hours and hours, breaking off only to fetch coffee for the other or to take a walk down the corridor, eyeing up the potential competition as they go. Steve Rogers remains asleep, healing faster but dreaming fitfully of raging, fearful eyes and jagged mountain peaks. He hears the robotic click of a metal arm and the desperate scream of a man who falls into an abyss, and he when he startles himself awake it is almost 2pm. 

Marvin Gaye plays softly in the background while Sam and Steve talk in stilted discussion about the fallout of the helicarrier crash. Debris has flooded the river, oil spills are being neutralised, and Sam resolutely avoids mentioning Bucky. Time passes, he plays more motown music, and Steve dozes in and out of slumber, waking up to smile at Natasha, who is as pale as a ghost and has developed a semi-permanent crease just above her brow line. Steve notes smugly that it wasn’t there yesterday, and then believes that Natasha and he really are friends. There ain’t nothing to solidify a friendship like the belief that the other is dead, he's learnt.

When he’s strong enough to stay awake for longer than fifteen minutes at a time – which is much sooner than even the doctors predicted, shocking a nurse who expected a comatose patient and instead received a soft but cheery ‘Hi there!’ – he sends Sam and Natasha home. Well, he sends Sam home, and instructs him to take Natasha out for some breakfast, because she looks absolutely wrung out. He obliges far too quickly, and Steve can’t help but wonder if maybe there’s something there. That thought doesn’t last too long though, because from outside he hears one of his guards stomp down the hallway whilst the other calls after him. There’s a beat, a sigh, and then the other guard follows his colleague, leaving Steve entirely exposed. For the first time in a long while, Steve feels uneasy – there’s a miniscule part of him that’s scared now, scared of trusting people, scared of not knowing who people really are. He thinks that maybe that’s something that won’t ever leave him now. 

He’s broken out of his reverie at 5:28pm by a gruff throat clearing in his doorway, and when he looks up the guards are still gone and a very dishevelled looking Winter Soldier – James, Bucky – stands at the foot of his bed with his eyes trained on the floor.

He freezes, and for a moment he tenses up, believing that he’s about to be attacked again. Then his heart stops, because in all the time he’s known Bucky, he’s never once believed that he’d hurt him. That stings more than any pain he might receive – the knowledge that for some twisted reason, the world moved and changed just enough for him to flinch at the sight of his best friend. 

But the pain doesn’t come. Instead, Bucky stands stock still, focus flicking from object to object as he scopes the room, the fingers on his metal arm flexing and twitching as his mouth moves soundlessly. He draws breath like he’s about to speak, but shuts his mouth and exhales irritably through his nose like he’s angry at himself for stalling. Steve waits, gaze focused pleadingly on the man in front of him, begging him to say something, anything, but remaining silent. Bucky needs to start, he needs to prove that he can.

There’s a couple more failed inhales before Bucky swallows hard and his eyes dare to settle on Steve’s face, blinking rapidly like he’s trying to ingrain the image into his mind. A pause, and then-

‘I think I’m starting to remember who I am. Who I was. Whichever.’

It’s a better start than Steve could possibly have hoped for. It’s nervous but semi-confident, stunted but thought out, and sounds as colloquial as Bucky used to be. He takes a minute to think it through, dwells upon the ‘whichever’ that suggests that he might be trying to connect the two, trying to become the man that Steve used to love so dearly. It’s a tiny moment really, but Steve holds onto it with every bit of faith that he has and steels himself for his question in response.

‘And me? Do you know who I am?’

Bucky response is automated, memorised, and Steve’s heart deflates a little, a rush of air leaving him like he’s been winded.

‘Steve Rogers. Captain America. Leader of the Howling Commandos. Best friend of Bucky Barnes.’

There’s a pause while the two men avoid each other's stares. Bucky flicks his eyes to the window, de-focusing and re-focusing periodically while Steve shuts his own and tilts his head back onto his pillow, sighing deeply. He waits for a while, tries to figure out his next move with a man who seems to have no personal recollection of their life together when Bucky speaks first, sight still firmly trained upon the smeared glass.

‘I remember bits. Sort of. A train and an operating table and – a car, a flying car. For some reason I remember a flying car.’

Steve laughs out loud, a short sharp burst that stabs inside his bruised chest, but it’s worth it to see the alarmed look on Bucky’s face that turns into the smallest hint of amusement as the man in the bed wheezes, his shoulders shaking. Bucky huffs out a breath like he wants to laugh, but like he’s forgotten how to, so instead he just watches as Steve giggles to himself uncontrollably. After a couple of minutes, his laughing quietens down and he looks over to Bucky, who has shoved his metal arm as deep into the pocket of a dirty old jacket as it can possibly go. He looks almost embarrassed, and Steve suddenly feels a little guilty – he’s laughing at a man who is walking around in a world he doesn’t know with a head full of memories that he can’t make sense of – so he takes a deep breath and offers a small smile to Bucky.

‘Sorry. It’s just – of all the things, that’s what you remember?’

‘Not just that. I remembered what you said to me. In the – in the helicarrier. I remembered it, but I don’t know where from.’

The response is so fast that it takes Steve by surprise. It’s like he’s been thinking about it for a while, like he’s been dwelling on those words since Steve spoke them, and it makes that hope inside him burn a little bit brighter for just a little bit longer. If he remembers those words, the words they said to one another so many times, then maybe he could start to understand what they meant to another; understand what he, Bucky, meant to Steve.

They fall into silence again while Steve stares at the unshaven face of the man in front of him. He notes that, without being aware of it, Bucky has moved closer to him, relaxed into the space and shuffled into the square of open floor next to the bed. He’s more open, freer, and – Steve realises with a jolt – he looks like he’s ready to understand, ready to accept. His metal hand is still in his pocket, but he can see through the material that it’s stopped clenching, more a position of comfort now than one of protection.

Through the cracks in Bucky’s guarded eyes, Steve can see a man who is desperate to understand what it means to be Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes; as Bucky searches Steve’s face for coldness or anger, Steve realises that he is also a man in dire need of one good friend.

Like Steve was once, a small boy in a large schoolyard.

With this in mind, and thinking of the chance that he now has to repay _his_ Bucky Barnes, his best friend, for years of loyal companionship and love, he asks one final question into the quiet room.

‘What do you want?’

It’s not spoken with malice or disbelief, just plain kindness, and it takes a moment for Bucky to respond. When he does, Steve smiles, and thinks that maybe – just maybe – the world has been good to him this one time. 

‘I want to know everything. From the start.’


End file.
